Denver and the West

Denver charter schools show strong improvement in math, reading

Slow and steady sometimes wins the race. But not in the national scheme of charter school improvement, and Denver charter schools are playing the hare.

Students in Denver charter schools are learning an additional 70 days' worth of material in math and 43 days' worth of material in reading than they were in 2009, according to the National Charter School Study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University.

"That's a very strong value," said James Woodworth, a quantitative research analyst at CREDO at Stanford who helped with the study.

The study looked at charter schools in 27 states and compared them with their traditional public school counterparts.

Each charter school student was matched with a traditional public school "twin" — students from the same grade level, ethnicity, previous test scores — for the study. Researchers compared the twins' test scores in an effort to compare charter schools with public schools.

Results were measured in days of learning — how much a student would learn each day.

But the study also compared charter schools with data collected in 2009. Back then, only 16 states participated in the study, but researchers were still able to gauge improvement. Schools in those 16 states are learning 14 more days' worth of material on average than in 2009.

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"What it found is that nationally, we are seeing slow progress in the performance of charter schools, and it's slow but steady," Woodworth said. "For the national average to move 14 days to the positive in only four years ... that's actually a pretty major accomplishment to do that much in such a short time."

Colorado charter schools saw the second-most improvement in math behind charters in Washington, D.C., even though only Denver charter schools were measured in 2009, not other charter schools in the state. In 2013, the study was statewide.

Compared with traditional public schools in the state in 2013, Colorado charter schools stacked up. Students there had an additional seven days' worth of learning in reading and seven fewer days of math. But the numbers aren't all that go into learning.

"It's really important when you look at these numbers to consider not just the academic benefits of charters but the other benefits. ... Maybe the school has a focus on arts or on sciences or something like that," Woodworth said. "It's very situational."

Charter school gains

Improvement was measured in days of learning. In other words, how much a student would typically learn in one day.

Colorado charter schools had seven more days of learning in reading and seven fewer days of learning in math than Colorado traditional public schools.

Denver charter school improvement since 2009: 43 additional days of learning in reading; 70 additional days of learning in math Source: National Charter School Study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University

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